a geologist bakes

Challah, An Enriched Loaf

Here we are again, ay, Wednesday. I have a wonderful recipe in reserve. I’ll probably do it for Easter. Then I also had a great idea for St. Patrick’s Day but someone stole all the hours from my day.

Ah go on. Seeing as I’m not going to get around to writing it up properly before Paddy’s day you can have my idea. It’s for a tri-colour jelly. It’ll look so pretty and taste great. So start by making an apple jelly layer. Buy the little pack of lime jelly, melt as directed but instead of topping up with cold water use apple juice. Pour it into a big glass bowl or lots of individual glasses. Put it in the fridge to set.

Next to panna cotta. Make it as per my previous post. Then pour it onto the apple jelly, wherever you’ve done that, and pop it into the fridge to set.

Finally make an orange layer, like the apple one, by melting the shop-bought jelly as you’re told to and then topping up with orange juice. Pour it on top of the panna cotta and then put it in the fridge to set.

Anyway, that’s an aside, this weeks post is actually an enriched brown loaf, based largely on a recipe in The Guardian by Yotam Ottelenghi.

One more aside. My husband has made an ingenious resolution to make something from the cooking supplements, from the Sunday papers, every week. It’s great. Gets you tasting things you might otherwise cower from. Prune brownies? Not so…pruny?

Enriched loaves.

This is super simple but it does take a while. My inattention may have resulted in me not seeing the initial proving time of two hours. But regardless, if you had a lazy Sunday handy, this’d be the recipe.

I said above there that this is based on the Yotam recipe and it is. However, due to miopia it is a brown loaf rather than the original white. Accidentally healthy. Not to worry.

looks alright, doesn’t it

Fast action yeast 2.5 teaspoons

Lukewarm water 200ml

Caster sugar 90g

Strong brown flour 580g

Flaky salt 1 tablespoon

Eggs 3

Sunflower oil 60ml

Softened butter 60g

Start by adding the yeast to the water, in a small bowl, and then adding in one tablespoon of the sugar. Leave it to froth up for fifteen minutes.

yuuum

Meanwhile, weigh out the rest of the sugar, the flour and the salt (it is meant to be a tablespoon, just in case you think I misstyped) and add it to the bowl of a stand mixer with a dough hook attachment. Give it a quick mix.

After fifteen minutes, pour the yeasty mess, TWO eggs, the oil and the butter into the floury mix and let it knead itself on a medium speed for eight minutes. Fierce specific but that’s what Yotam said. In any case the dough needs to be very elastic and stretchy and smooth.

Loosely shape it into a ball and put it into a large bowl.

Using a pastry brush, brush the top of the dough with a very small amount of oil. Place a clean tea towel over the top of the bowl and place it somewhere warm for 2 hours.

it didn’t change colour, that’s my photography skills

After the two hours, divide the dough into three. I should mention the dough was meant to double in size. Mine didn’t but perhaps that’s because I only waited an hour and a half. Who knows.

Roll the three pieces into long sausage shapes and place them, side by side, onto a large sheet of baking parchment. Squish the three sausages together at one end to stick them together.

Now plait the dough, like you would plait your hair. The left piece into the middle, then the right piece into the middle. Keep going till you reach the end, then pinch that end together too.

Tuck the two ends under to make it look nice and neat.

I’ve been at the collages again

Cover it with the tea towel and let it prove again for an hour and a half.

Before the dough finishes proving, preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Place a good, solid baking tray in the oven, to preheat as well.

Beat the last egg and then paint it all over the plaited dough.

Slide the bread, paper and all, onto the hot baking tray and bake for 30 – 40mins, till it’s beautifully dark brown and hollowish when you tap it underneath. It won’t be as hollow sounding as a normal loaf, this lad is enriched and so a little duller.